


Big Sky Country

by ignipes



Category: Doctor Who, Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-03
Updated: 2009-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-03 01:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can tell them the story, but she can't make them listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Sky Country

In a red barn on the prairie, Martha tells her story.

Her mouth is dry and her lips are chapped. The sun is too bright on these American plains, the wind too strong. She can walk miles before anybody stops to give her a lift.

"I know it's hard to hear," she says. "But I only want you to listen. I need you to listen."

She stops to clear her throat, and one of the men hands her a bottle of water. She thanks him and drinks. The water is warm and slightly metallic, straight from a well. Martha takes a deep breath and looks at the faces around her. They are grim and distrustful in the afternoon light slanting through the barn door, but nobody yells at her to stop or demands that she leave.

They are armed, but the weapons are not meant for her.

It's a better reception than some she's received.

"I want to tell you about the Doctor," Martha says.

They don't react to the name. The story has not reached them yet.

 

After Martha is finished, the neighbors file out of the barn into the cool, windy night. Every one of them looks to the sky when they duck outside. They never know when the orbs will come to earth again. Even here, hundreds of miles from any city, surrounded by dying fields and abandoned towns, there is no safety.

Martha hears the scuff of footsteps behind her. She's in the middle of taking another long drink of water. She lowers the canteen slowly and swallows.

"Hello," she says. Most of the people she meets don't bother to introduce themselves, and she's found it especially true in this hard, distrustful part of America.

The woman who approaches her has dark hair and a pair of sunglasses pushed up on her head. She's wearing jeans and boots and a Z.Z. Top t-shirt, and she's smiling. It's the first genuine smile Martha has seen in weeks, maybe longer.

"So this Doctor guy," the woman says, "he's the one who's going to save us all?"

Martha bristles. "No," she says. "We're going to save ourselves."

The woman's smile grows. For a moment Martha thinks that's it, end of the conversation, but then the woman says, "You need a ride to wherever you're going?"

Martha's feet are tired and her muscles ache, her eyes are scratchy and her throat dry. She doesn't know where she's headed next, has no more than a general idea of how much of the map she has to cover, how much time she can spend in this corner of the world before moving on.

"Thank you," she says. "I would like that."

Trust is hard these days, but now, nearly six months into what may be the last year, being alone is harder.

 

The woman introduces herself as Pam and insists on driving west even though Martha had wanted to head south. Pam's car is old and loud and she drives with the windows open, the radio on. Beneath the darkening sky there is nothing but grass on either side of the road for as far as the eye can see.

There is nothing overhead except for the emerging stars.

"Trust me," Pam says. She raises her voice to be heard above the wind through the windows and the wailing guitar on cassette.

"I already have," Martha points out. She's shared her story and her name. She's in the car and almost convinced Pam won't drive her straight into the Master's hands. "But you still haven't told me where we're going."

Pam laughs at that; she laughs louder and more readily than anybody Martha has met this year. It's both unnerving and reassuring to hear. "To see some friends," Pam says. "Some people who might be a little more receptive to your story than Ma and Pa Farmer back there."

There are "some people" everywhere Martha goes. Some people are organizing, some people are fighting, some people won't take this devastation sitting down. They often ask her to stay and fight, but she never does, no matter how much good they are doing.

The world is full of weapons and people to wield them. All she has are words. But the words will have to be enough.

 

They drive until the sky is brightening in the east. Martha jerks awake when Pam turns the car off the paved highway and onto a washboard-rough dirt road. There are barbed wire fences on either side, lines of delicate shadowy strings in the predawn light. Up ahead there's a lone light glowing on the prairie: a house with no neighbors.

Martha yawns so wide her jaw cracks, and Pam looks over at her with a tired smile. The radio is still on but it's turned down low. "Sleep well?"

She's always tired these days, has been ever since she left London in a red haze of terror and confusion. Every minute she spends sleeping she isn't traveling and she isn't talking, and Martha knows to the hour exactly how much time she has left.

"Is that where we're going?" she asks, nodding toward the light in the distance.

Instead of answering, Pam says, "You really think it'll work, don't you?"

Martha hesitates a moment before answering. "Yes," she says. "I do."

Two weeks ago, hiding in the burnt-out shell of a suburban neighborhood while the orbs droned and darted around, she didn't. Two months ago, lashed by the waves of the ocean as she dragged her battered boat ashore in a storm, she didn't.

"Somebody has to tell people how to fight," she says.

This is the point at which most people ask, "Is that what you're doing? How is this fighting? How will this help?"

Pam doesn't. She only nods thoughtfully and says, "This place up here, it belongs to some friends of mine. And they've got friends who've got friends. You know how it works."

The single beacon of light is brighter now. Against the fading night Martha can see the outline of several boxy outbuildings at the end of the lonely dirt road.

"I hope I can convince them," Martha says, more to herself than for Pam's benefit. It isn't something she's used to admitting aloud.

But Pam hears her and laughs. "Oh, honey, that's the least of your problems. These folks? They've seen far weirder shit than aliens from outer space taking over the world."

In spite of herself, Martha grins. "That shouldn't be reassuring," she says, "but oddly enough, it is."

"They also make some mean buttermilk pancakes," Pam adds, "and we're just in time for breakfast. I hope you're hungry."

The windows of the house fill up with yellow light as they approach, and as Pam turns into the drive the front door open and a man's broad-shouldered silhouette fills the doorway, raising a hand in greeting. It looks like they're expect.

Yesterday, alone and parched beneath the prairie sun, Martha didn't believe she could succeed.

But right now, she does.


End file.
